SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Harold Landry knows the torture of sitting out a full season.
The pain of watching Super Bowl LX from the sideline might be more haunting.
Landry (knee) was limited in Friday’s practice for the Patriots and is listed as questionable Sunday against the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX.
He did not play in the AFC Championship game but was anticipating playing in the Super Bowl as of his last interview of the week.
“I’m pretty confident that I can help the team in any way they need me to do it,” said Landry, who has been dealing with knee pain since Week 6. “It’s been tough all year being in and out, trying to play through what I have going on.”
Tough is one word for the frustrations.
Another?
“It’s been trash,” Landry said.
Landry has 40 sacks over his last four seasons with at least 8.5 in each one (2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025).
He missed the 2022 season with a torn ACL but came back as good as ever with the Titans.
For perspective, only 10 players have 40 sacks over the last four NFL seasons.
It helped him earn his three-year, $43.5 million free agent contract to follow head coach Mike Vrabel to the Patriots and return to his college town (Boston College) last March.
“I hate not practicing because I’m a guy that likes to work on my specific game plan for that game,” Landry said. “And when you can’t practice, you’re kind of going into the game just hoping you’re hitting on all cylinders.”
Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak will call his final game before moving Thursday to become head coach of the Raiders.
There were questions all week about whether he was distracted from his current job thinking about his next job.
“Been working my whole life to get to coach in this game,” Kubiak said, “and that’s where our focus is.”
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald called it “bittersweet” to lose Kubiak, yet is “happy” any time one of his assistants can be elevated. He saw a lot of that advancement under John Harbaugh with the Ravens.
Once upon a time, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was in the same spot as Kubiak — a head coach in waiting — for the Colts.
And then he backed out of the agreement after Super Bowl 52.
McDaniels eventually left the Patriots for the Raiders but his second stint as a head coach didn’t go any better than his first with the Broncos did.
Will he get a third shot after winning 2025 NFL Assistant Coach of the Year?
“I think it will take time for Josh to get back in that conversation,” Chris Simms, who played for McDaniels in Denver and will be a part of NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast, said. “Regardless of what you want to say as a head coach, he’s one of the greatest minds in the history of football. The Seahawks might be a little more talented than the Patriots, but it’s not by so much that I don’t think a guy like Josh McDaniels can close that gap.”
DT Milton Williams can be a back-to-back champion.
After he was nearly MVP (two sacks) of Super Bowl 59 for the Eagles, Williams signed a four-year, $104 million contract with the Patriots.
He is playing in his third Super Bowl during a five-year career.
“I just dreamt about being in the NFL, playing in one,” Williams said. “Winning? Back-to-back? That would be something I didn’t even dream about.”
Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba and CB Devon Witherspoon were drafted together as first-round picks in 2023. A team can’t do much better.
“We looked at each other and said, ‘This is going to be our team and this is going to be something we have to accomplish,’” Witherspoon said. “We have to go out and win this game to solidify that.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
